


An Opening Cerebration

by PunmasterExtraordinaire



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: 2012 Summer Olympics, Behind the Scenes, Gen, My First AO3 Post, test post, why not?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-30
Updated: 2013-01-30
Packaged: 2017-11-27 12:48:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/662172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PunmasterExtraordinaire/pseuds/PunmasterExtraordinaire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Reaction fic to the 2012 London Summer Olympics, written forever ago.) </p><p>During the Opening Ceremony, England's just trying to find some peace and quiet and a good cup of tea. Trust America to ruin even *that*.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Opening Cerebration

England sat at a desk in a dim office, hair even more disheveled than usual, tie loose around his neck, stirring a cup of tea.

If anyone had asked, he would have said he was here to get away from it all for a while, and while that was true it wasn’t the _whole_ truth.

The _whole_ truth would have mentioned how he was terrified of something going wrong, something going really _really_ wrong, or despite all his efforts just being unimpressive next to China’s enormous piece of pageantry.

But surely it wasn’t as if anybody needed to know the _whole_ truth. He’d seen and heard the ceremony before many times, after all; he was merely here to get his stress headache away from the crowds and the noise and to his private stash of tea and good china. It made sense, as all the best falsehoods do.

So instead of out in the stands, here he was, sitting in a dim office in his Olympic Stadium with a steadying cuppa, listening to the muffled yet all too familiar ending music.

He really should be going to see how bad it was. Really he should.

Instead he took another sip of tea, wondering absently if he might somehow find a way to fake his own murder and run away to the—

The door abruptly crashed open, leaving a no doubt expensive dent in the wall.

“DUDE!” the American in the doorway bellowed.

England managed to claw back most of the red haze that descended on his vision at the sight of the dent. _More expenses.  How bloody brilliant._

“ _What_ ,” he snapped.

Staring at him with wide eyes— _Is that horror? Oh hell, how bad was it—_ America apparently couldn’t summon the brain cells necessary to think of a more complex utterance. “DUDE!” he yelled again.

England, short on sleep, temper, and patience, slammed a hand down on the table, rattling his china. “If you’ve come to tell me one of the sheep ate some dignitary’s toupee or the Cruella de Vil puppet yet again caused all dogs within two miles to start howling their bloody heads off, or even that the copper petals backfired and torched every athlete in one great raging inferno of the hopes and dreams of billions,” he took a deep breath, “I _don’t_ want to hear about it. The world can go screw itself, and knowing the proclivities of some of my ‘colleagues’ it very well might be doing so right at this moment.” He hunched his shoulders forward and picked up his tea cup. “Now go the hell away, I’m having tea.”

“DUDE!” America shouted once more, and something behind those glazed eyes must have managed to connect what little there was of his brain with his tongue, because he went on to holler “I’M TOTALLY COMING OVER THERE TO HUG YOU!”    

There were no banana peels to save him this time. Before England had time to scream, flee, or even do more than put his tea cup down, he was abruptly crushed by an overenthusiastic, super-powered hug. His infuriated response to this indignity ended up coming out not as the intended full-throated roar but more as a pathetic, muffled _oof_.    

It was only once the spots started to fade from his vision that he managed to put thoughts in coherent order again. _Oh bollocks, is this a pity hug? You know how Americans are with their invasions of personal space…did the ceremony go so horribly that even oblivious-to-other-people’s-feelings America thought to comfort me?_

America was talking, he realized distantly. Well, shouting, which was as close as the nation could get to the speech of normal people.

“…KNEW IT WAS THE ONE RING YOU SNEAKY OLD MAN! BUT HOLY COW DID I JUST SEE WHAT I THOUGHT I SAW?? DID THE QUEEN AND JAMES BOND JUST JUMP OUT OF AN EFFIN’ HELICOPTER?!? AND THEN AN ARMY OF MARY POPPINS CLONES FOUGHT VOLDEMORT AND CAPTAIN HOOK AND CRUELLA DE VIL AND SWEET ZOMBIE JESUS IGGY THIS IS LIKE THE BEST HERO TEAM-UP EVER!!! HOLLYWOOD NEEDS TO MAKE THIS MOVIE! BUT WITH THE VAMPIRE HUNTER ABRAHAM LINCOLN TOO! AND GENGHIS KHAN! AND- AND- DINOSAURS! YEAH!”

His excited little leaps jerked England back and forth like an old rag doll, the older country trying desperately to simultaneously claw at squeezing arms and get oxygen back into his crumpled lungs.

“…can’ breathe…” he managed to wheeze.

Oblivious, America continued his exuberant monologue. “And dude, I have _no_ idea what Mr. Bean was doing there, but that was hilarious too! Ooo, I’m totally gonna get me one of those bird-bike-thingies, d’ya think I could get a big one for my SUV?”

England summoned the biggest lungful of air he could, reached up, and walloped America smartly in the back of his thick skull. “Put me _down,_ you great idiot!”

America blinked. “Oh yeah, sorry ‘bout that,” he said, and dropped England unceremoniously.

What America had been blabbing on about finally began to register. England blinked. “Wait, you _liked_ it?”

“Iggy, it was _great_! Awesome, even!”

England suddenly remembered himself, and straightened, brushing off his clothes and fixing his tie. “Ahem. Well, of course it was. This is _Great_ Britain, after all. Such things are a matter of course.” He hesitated. “What about China, or even Canada?”

“Who?”

“Your brother, you daft excuse for a superpower!”

“Nah, I know who Beaverboy is. The first one.”

“China? Please do _not_ tell me you don’t know who _China_ is. The country you owe grotesque quantities of money to!”

America rolled his eyes. “Of course I know who _China_ is, Iggy!”

“That’s not my name, you sodding—”

“I mean, you say his name as if it should mean something. What are you even asking, anyway?”

“Four years ago? The last Summer Olympics? _China_?” This was ridiculous. This had to be one of America’s pathetic excuses for a joke.

“Wait, China hosted the Olympics?” He scrunched up his face. “Oh yeah, I forgot. It was pretty cool. But dude,” and the animation returned to his face, “Did I seriously just see Victorian dudes breakdancing? And I swear I heard the TARDIS arriving!”

Well, that was an answer of sorts.

“ ’Kay, now I’ve gotta go talk to Russia about those hats he stole from me. See ya ‘round, Artie!” And with that he happily bounced out of the room, leaving a flabbergasted England to stare after him.

From far down the hall England heard the echoes of a boisterous American accent. “Yo, Checkers! Love your ‘wellies’ and ‘brollies’! Ahahaha!! Hey, Germany, glad to see you finally came out of the closet, bro! Does Italy know?”

It seemed the rest of the rarely-united nations were coming. England’s back immediately straightened, fingers coming up almost unconsciously to tighten his tie, then to straighten the teacup in its saucer.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written last year right after the Opening Ceremony--I'm using it here as a sort of test post.
> 
> The bit at the end refers to the more bizarre costumes of the nations in the parade--the Russian team, for example, wore American cowboy-esque outfits, the Czech team wore an homage to typical English weather, and the German team...well, let's just say their masculine image took a bit of a hit.


End file.
